Section 620. Residential Office R-O District—Restricted Commercial.
A. Purpose and Intent.
This district is intended to control developments on the edges of residential areas which, because of their location on arterial streets or other environmental conditions, are susceptible to pressures for nonresidential uses. The R-O district permits new development at the residential scale, or conversion of residential structures for use as professional offices or other limited service uses. It also permits continuation of residential uses or reconversion to residential uses.
This district is intended to provide office uses that are developed in a manner that forms a transition between commercial districts and adjacent residential areas. The specific intent of the district is to:
1. Accommodate office development of a scale and intensity that reflects adjacent residential uses.
2. Accommodate the office use of residential structures in areas previously developed as residential but changing to office or service uses.
3. Accommodate the development of new office or service uses under strict performance standards to mitigate negative impacts of such development.
B. Permitted Uses.
1. Adult day care home or center; provided, that:
a. Outdoor recreation areas shall be screened from adjacent properties by a six-foot-high landscape hedge, solid fence, or solid wall.
2. Community residence home; provided, that:
a. The home has no more than five residents, not including staff (unless permitted by Section 36-582(A), Arizona Revised Statutes); or
b. For a home with six to ten residents, not including staff, the following conditions shall apply:
(1) Such home shall be registered with, and administratively verified by, the Planning and Development Department Director’s designee as to compliance with the standards of this section as provided in Section 701.
(2) No community residence home shall be located on a lot with a property line within 1,320 feet, measured in a straight line in any direction, of the lot line of another community residence home that has been registered with six to ten residents.
(3) Disability accommodation from the spacing requirement may be requested by an applicant per Section 701.E.3.
3. Professional, medical, dental and administrative office use including clerical or sales representative offices. No commodity or tangible personal property, either by way of inventory or sample, shall be stored, kept, or exhibited in any said office or on the premises wherein the said office is located except materials associated with professional or medical practice. Such office use shall not include:
a. Branch offices for the following: banks, building and loan associations, brokerage houses, savings and loan associations, finance companies, title insurance companies and trust companies.
4. Storage incidental to a construction project located on the project site.
5. No accessory uses shall be permitted except as stated herein:
a. Surface parking.
b. Open carport or residential garage.
c. One dwelling unit on any R-O development to be occupied by the owner or employee of business on the premises.
6. Public utility buildings and facilities when necessary for serving the surrounding territory. Repair and/or storage facilities, including outdoor, subject to a use permit.
7. Churches or similar places of worship, including parish houses, parsonages, rectories, and convents and dormitories with no more than ten residents accessory thereto, except temporary revival tents or buildings. Athletic activities in conjunction with the above and on the same lot or contiguous lots may be permitted. Bingo may be operated as an accessory use on the premises of the church when conducted no more than two days a week.
Fundraising events located on the same lot or contiguous lots shall be permitted, subject to the following requirements:
1. The sponsoring, organizing, and benefiting entities shall be nonprofit or religious organizations, and the event shall be in compliance with any applicable provisions of the Chapter 30, Solicitations [sic], of the Phoenix City Code:
2. Events held entirely within a building or buildings shall not be further regulated; however, events to be conducted wholly or in part outdoors shall be subject to the following additional conditions:
(A) All elements of the event shall be a minimum of fifty feet from any residential building.
(B) The event shall not be conducted between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m.
(C) The event shall not be conducted in such a manner as to reduce the number of parking spaces required for any normal functions of the primary use which are held during the event.
(D) Lighting shall be so placed as to reflect the light away from adjacent residences.
3. Pocket shelters as accessory uses to churches or similar places of worship, subject to the following standards (and applicable Maricopa County and City of Phoenix Health and Safety Regulations):
(A) A pocket shelter shall house no more than twelve unrelated persons. A pocket shelter may house up to twenty unrelated persons upon approval of a use permit in accordance with the procedures and standards of Section 307 of this Ordinance. Minors (age eighteen years or younger) accompanied by a parent or a guardian shall not be counted in the number of unrelated persons.
(B) The church or similar place of worship shall be located on an arterial or collector street as defined on the street classification map. A shelter at a church or similar place of worship, which is not on an arterial or collector street shall be permitted upon approval of a use permit in accordance with the procedures and provisions of Section 307 of this Ordinance.
(C) The church or similar place of worship shall provide on-site supervision of shelter residents at all times that two or more unrelated residents are at the shelter.
(D) Drug, alcohol, other substance abuse, or mental health rehabilitation programs shall not be allowed as part of the shelter services. This provision shall not prevent the church or similar place of worship from referring shelter residents to other appropriate programs at the church or similar place of worship or elsewhere, e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous, which are not part of the shelter services.
(E) Shelter residents shall not possess alcohol, weapons, or illegal drugs at the shelter.
(F) Open areas surrounding pocket shelter structures shall be screened from view from abutting and/or adjoining properties by hedges, trees, other landscaping, or walls.
(G) Pocket shelter structures shall not have direct access to abutting and/or adjoining properties.
(H) Pocket shelters shall be housed in permanent structures rather than in tents or other similar temporary structures.
(I) A church or similar place of worship shall house no more than one pocket shelter.
8. Schools. Fundraising events located on the same lot or contiguous lots shall be permitted, subject to the requirements set forth in Section 621.B.1.q.
9. Public Assembly—Residential. A use permit shall be required for all public assembly—residential uses with vehicular access on local or minor collector streets.
C. Yard, Height and Area Requirements. The following criteria provide the minimum performance standards by which the Site Planning Division will review a site plan for office use. These minimum requirements are intended to provide a basis for Site Planning Division review and specific stipulations may be imposed to achieve compatibility with existing land uses and reasonable transition between residential and more intense land uses.
1. Gross lot area is recommended to be a minimum of twenty-four thousand square feet. This recommended lot size may be reduced for office developments on lots smaller than twenty-four thousand square feet. In considering a request to reduce the twenty-four thousand square foot gross lot area, the Planning Commission and City Council shall evaluate the following factors: provision for safe access to public streets, limiting the intrusion of commercial traffic into residential areas, ability to provide on-site amenities and appropriate buffering to adjacent properties, and whether the scale of the proposed development is in character with surrounding land uses. An application for rezoning shall be accompanied by a site plan showing the proposed development and verification from the Site Planning Division that the development will meet all applicable ordinance and site plan requirements.
In addition, lots of less than twenty-four thousand square feet shall be subject to the following standards:
b. Landscaping/walls in front and side yards subject to Site Planning Division approval.
c. Minimum three-foot-wide landscape strip around the principal structure.
d. Lots having twelve thousand to twenty-three thousand nine hundred ninety-nine square feet:
(1) One parking space for each two hundred fifty square feet net floor area, or portion thereof, less one space if owner-occupied.
(2) Two hundred square feet of additional landscaping and solid fence or wall around rear yard.
e. Lots having six thousand to eleven thousand nine hundred ninety-nine square feet:
(1) One parking space for each two hundred square feet net floor area, or portion thereof. No access will be permitted to any adjacent alley rights-of-way.
(2) Two hundred square feet of additional landscaping, including twenty-four-inch box shade trees between the wall and parking area a maximum of twenty feet on center or as approved by the Site Planning Division and a masonry wall along interior property lines.
2. Accessory uses are not allowed in the front yard of the development.
3. A front yard setback having a depth of not less than twenty feet. No maneuvering or parking shall be in front yard of the development except for ingress and egress to allowable parking areas.
4. Minimum side yard setbacks of ten feet for new construction or setbacks in conformance with existing structures for those which are to remain.
a. Street side yard used for access to allowable parking (access provided between the main structure and the street): a minimum of twenty-foot driveway aisle is required with a minimum five-foot landscaping strip on private property separating the driveway aisle from the street right-of-way to include a screen wall or landscaping.
5. A rear yard setback having a depth of not less than twenty-five feet which depth may be measured from the centerline of any existing sixteen-foot or wider rear alley or from what would be the centerline of a full sixteen-foot or wider rear alley where only a one-half or partial alley exists.
6. Lot coverage exclusive of carports shall not exceed thirty percent of the net lot area. Open carports shall not exceed ten percent of the net lot area and shall not be counted towards lot coverage.
7. Building height is limited to fifteen feet at the minimum rear and side yard setbacks. Height is measured from natural grade or as from grade approved by the Site Planning Division. Such height may be increased with additional setback by providing one-foot additional setback for each one foot in height to a maximum building height of twenty-five feet.
8. Access to site is to be from an arterial or collector street as defined on the street classification map, except within high intensity areas as defined in the interim 1985 plan or other superseding, adopted plans.
9. No maneuvering or parking shall be permitted in a yard setback adjacent to a canal right-of-way except for ingress and egress to allowable parking areas. Such ingress and egress shall not be within a ten-foot-wide landscape setback from the canal bank right-of-way.
D. Development Review Approval.
1. All office developments to be developed under the regulations of this section will require development review approval subject to the provisions [of] Section 507. (Ord. No. G-3490, 1992; Ord. No. G-3741, 1994; Ord. No. G-4041, 1997; Ord. No. G-4109, 1998; Ord. No. G-4816, 2006; Ord. No. G-5243, 2008; Ord. No. G-5561, 2010; Ord. No. G-5687, 2012; Ord. No. G-6331, 2017; Ord. No. G-6451, 2018)